Friday, 28 February 2014

S202: Mystery Mask Mix Up

We open on a vaguely Asian inspired temple. Full of bats. Just chock full of bats.

China is full of bats.

Inside two shifty looking dudes are kowtowing to a giant gold statue of Buddha with his crotch on fire.

This is also clearly not Buddha. I don't know who this guy is supposed to be.

The fire in Buddha crotch births forth a... he looks like a power ranger. Like when the power rangers go to Asia that one time and get Asian style costumes. It looks like that. He tells the two worshippers to get the mask of kan tu for him.

Go Go Power Racist!

The worshippers reveal their faces and it turns out they're like... ghost apes or something? Seriously what the hell is going on here.

Why do they look so horrified?

We then cut to the gang who are apparently in Asia. How they got any money to travel is a mystery, but I sure do love how fucking ridiculous they look surrounded by vaguely realistic looking Asian people.

Fred's smile is full of malice. He thinks of nothing but bloodshed.

The gang are watching a Chinese New Years parade. One really disconcerting thing is that none of the Chinese people in the background blink. Like, ever. Shaggy and Scoob fall over and we get this unadulterated shot of the Chinese crowd. I love the way all Chinese people either wear old ancient master robes or jumpsuits. And that that one Chinese lady has an umbrella for no goddamn reason.

They don't ever move or blink. They might as well be cardboard cut-outs.

The gang decide to look in some curio shops. The first one they enter has a mysterious gentlemen try and sell them a mask. Fred declines by saying something like: "no thanks, clone faces are more my day" or maybe "no thanks, palm faces are more my day", cone faces maybe? chrome faces? seriously I have no idea what he's talking about. Daphne however, declares it groovy, and just straight out buys it.

Buy this grumpy mask.

Shaggy and Scoob comment that maybe Daphne wants to use the mask to scare up a couple of new boyfriends. I can't tell if they're calling her a whore or lonely.

Velma is smug enough to kill a horse.

Daphne shouldn't have bought that mask, the white gorilla ghost dudes are furious, and start harassing the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper immediately sells out Daphne, and the ghost gorrillas swear revenge.

Perpetual disgust.

The gang encounter the ghost gorrillas on the street, and Velma becomes a Hindu goddess.

Velma is surrounded by the ghosts of her past.

The ghost gorillas demand the mask, (which Daphne staunchly refuses to give up, even though she'll clearly be killed if she doesn't), and everyone fucking mutates.

GIANT HAND! GIANT HAND!

Velma is replaced by a whiny ten year old billionaire for a split second.

Scooby tries to scare them off but is clearly just loose skin and a skeleton by this point in his life.

Crying or laughing?

Scooby steals a shirt presser from a Chinese laundry, and creates a steam screen so that the rest of the gang can escape. The gang then decide to visit A. Fong, who, according to Velma, is the "only Oriental Art Dealer in this side of town." Does... does she mean all of China? Because that is clearly not true.

This guy knows it.

Turns out the mask was stolen from the Crypt of someone I swear to god they keep calling Zen Two Oh, and now his ghost is out for revenge. The two ghost gorillas are apparently zombies. Fred takes this way too well, it seems like whenever anyone is telling the gang how much danger they are in, Fred is just hard as a rock beneath his bell-bottoms.

All of them look fairly aroused.

As the gang leave A. Fong's they are persued by the gorilla zombies in some kind of tricked out automobile. It's awesome.

Doesn't this look like a still from a far better 70's cartoon about ghosts racing.

There's another swingin groove song during the whole chase sequence, again very irrelevant, this one seems to be about how great life could be if only the object of the singers desires would love him. As you can clearly see this has little to nothing to do with gorrilla Zombies and a stolen mask.Still, the chase sequence has its moments.

Whenever I'm in China, I always like to stay at: Hotel.

Fred cannot see the road and will crash.

Fuck this show.

The gang land in a pile of dead fish. As Scoob searches for Shaggy his arm becomes green. Which is a weird mistake to make, really.

It's the same Green as Shaggy's shirt weirdly enough.

What's even weirder is that, when Scooby fails to find shaggy from his first search, and goes looking again, his arm once more becomes green.

Also those fish are fucking massive.

Anyway, that aside, it turns out the ghost gorilla zombies have kidnapped Daphne, which is pretty par for the course. The gang find a "Chinese Laundry Ticket" apparently dropped by the ghost zombies. They never got out of the car so I don't know how, but anyway, it says something like: "IN THE HITTZ THE LEWBTE."

Gibberish.

Apparently it just needs to be reversed in the mirror. That's not how mirror writing works, right? Doesn't it need to be back to front, not upside down? The fuck. Whatever, it apprently says: "THE TEMPLE IN THE HILLS", so the gang decide to head there. The temple. Like, in all of China, this is the only one. Come on guys. The fuck.

Where are the bats though?

The gang arrive at the temple, which is the same one from earlier for those playing at home. The gang split up, because of course they fucking do, and Fred and Velma find Daphne. They don't untie her right away, creepily enough, and instead pretend they don't know what her cries for help mean. It's creepy. Apparently it was also a trap, and the three of them are left to starve to death I guess.

"I wonder if she wants out? I wonder if she hates it here?"

Shag and Scoob are of course, fucking around getting into hijinx, again, only good for a couple of snapshots.

A portent of racism to come.

Scooby is basically a motorcycle for the next minute or so.

I dare anyone to explain this.

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

At one point Shaggy and Scooby pretend to run a "Haunted Chinee Restraun'" it's just awful.

So.... so racist.

For some reason Shaggy's "chinee" accent is just him talking like a baby. Also at one point the show becomes so racist I'm surprised I didn't shit myself and die from the sheer bigotry coming out of my computer screen.

*vomits*

Shag and Scoob find themselves captured and tied together on top of a whole heap of fireworks. It's amazing, unfortunately they just sit on it and put it out.

I don't know what is going on with Scoob's legs here, but it isn't good.

In their fuckery Shag and Scoob free the rest of the gang, and the lot of them head off in search of clues. They find a pigeon coup full of carrier pigeons. Apparently that means the mystery is close to solved. Fred describes a trap that, I shit you not, involved Shaggy's model train set from the Mystery Machine. I love so much that Fred is just going to use something probably very dear to Shaggy to catch a ghost. Fred does not give a fuck.

"Hey Shaggy?" "What?" "Fuck your childhood."

Predictably the trap fails.

Scooby is so terrified right now you don't even know.

They still manage to capture the lot of them anyway, turns out it was A. Fong from before. Which, honestly, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. As they explain what happened, the detective looks so unimpressed.

"I think I'm going to go home and shoot my wife."

They whole episode ends with a mouse eating a Scooby snack, and I once more get to see what madness looks like close up.